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I'm part of the Customer Success team here at  We work closely with our customers to help them advance their membership business. As we continue to engage with our customers more and assist the growth of their membership by sharing important lessons and results that we're witnessing when it comes to our overall membership strategy.

The most talked about topic of conversation for our customers has been price hikes. Customers are asking inquiries:

• "How do I determine whether I'm capable of successfully increase prices without triggering an enormous churning event?"
• "How do I increase the price?"
• "When is the best time to raise prices?"

Clearly, there's no one-size-fits-all solution for this. If there isn't a specific plan in place, there's a considerable risk around increasing prices. However, after walking through this journey recently with some of our customers I'm certain that there are certain signs that suggest when prices are able to increase without risk. They include:

The strong adoption of annual plans vs. plans that are monthly

Memberships that see strong organic adoption of an annual subscription over monthly ones have a significant price advantage. When memberships see at 70 percent of the first-time subscribers purchasing an annual plan over a period of minimum four months, it is evidence of the membership being priced at an undervalued.

If this is the case the price hike of 10%-20% will likely get the approval of members.

Continuous expansion of content formats

Memberships that continually increase their content offerings may increase prices frequently (i.e. once per year). For instance, member benefits were traditionally focused on newsletters. Expansion of those benefits into different formats like videos, podcasts and other formats will increase the perceived worth of member.

Whether it's content that's been repurposed or content that's entirely new, the expansion of content creates an opportunity for price increases in the range of 5%-10% every 12-18 months.

Working in an un-served market

Memberships that operate in under-served market segments can cost more. When this happens the competition is minimal and there are very few qualified experts that can compete in the marketplace.

An membership offering in-depth analysis and cutting-edge research, in a niche subject, is sure to attract prominent executives, thought leaders and other innovators from similar industries. This is an audience who's eager to shell out a substantial amount to learn about the impact on their industries and customers. Memberships that find themselves serving such groups in these markets have a significant power of pricing.

Information and statistics

Below are some general trends that we've observed during our research:

• Customers that have experienced the greatest success in increasing prices gradually - not exceeding the amount of one price hike each twelve to 18 months.
• If the pricing strategy involved annual price increases, 10 percent per year are absorbed well by members.
• Annual memberships that do not have raised prices historically (or for more than the period of 18 months) and maintain a retention rate of at least 75% are likely to increase rates as high as 20%, without having a adverse impact.
• Customer results indicate that the rate of price hikes is more relevant than the price increase itself - as long as the customer is operating within the 10%-20% price increase interval.

I hope that this helps. I'll share more of the lessons learned as we continue to move ahead!